ROLLER DERBY IS A GAME OF STRATEGY. DERBY CHESS REQUIRES
STRATEGIES SIMILAR TO THOSE USED IN ROLLER DERBY.

Sounds like fun. Let’s play derby chess.

INITIALIZE GAME. PLEASE SELECT A PIECE TO SACRIFICE.

Okay, I…uh, what? What do you mean sacrifice a piece? We haven’t started the game yet.

DERBY CHESS STRATEGY REQUIRES ONE PLAYER TO SACRIFICE
A PIECE BEFORE THE GAME CAN BEGIN. I WILL NOT SACRIFICE
A PIECE AND WILLINGLY START AT A DISADVANTAGE.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE THE GAME TO BEGIN, YOU MUST SACRIFICE A PIECE.

That’s not fair.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE THE GAME TO BEGIN, YOU MUST SACRIFICE A PIECE.

That’s not fair! Why should you get to start the game with more pieces on the board than I do? I didn’t do anything to deserve that!

IF YOU WOULD LIKE THE GAME TO BEGIN, YOU MUST SACRIFICE A PIECE.

Fine, I’ll remove a pawn. I just want to play chess, geez.

BEGIN PLAY.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

That’s not exactly how this scene from the 1983 film Wargames played out. We all know that Matthew Broderick wanted to play Global Thermonuclear War instead, a fateful decision that almost triggered World War III (in Hollywood, anyway) due to the actions of a computer that just wanted to play a game with its creator.

But I wonder what would have happened if he decided a game of chess was the better choice. Let’s say this game of “derby chess” existed and the computer played this game with its human opponent, despite it having this strange and unfair starting rule. What might it have looked like?

“Derby chess” in action. One player is forced to sacrifice a piece in order to begin play. The red player bites the bullet…but is this really fair to him?

Two players come to the board ready to play, but both know that the game cannot begin until someone willingly takes away one of their own pieces.

If this was a casual game of “derby chess” played for fun, someone would probably take a pawn off the board relatively quickly just to get the game started. Because hey, it’s just a game, and both players want to play it. Even if the rules are strange or a little unfair to someone, if both players are mostly okay with them, they’ll play on anyway.

A pawn is an insignificant piece compared to others on the board, anyway. If the red player was significantly better than his opponent, he would probably win despite the starting handicap and the uphill battle that would result from it. If the blue player knew he wasn’t as good, he would just as well wait for his opponent to take off a piece, knowing that would give him a better chance of keeping the game close.

Still, it’s a stretch to think anyone would willingly want to play “derby chess” for the simple reason that it’s a flawed game. Wouldn’t it make more sense to play a couple of games of “regular” chess instead, which is as fair a game as you can possibly get? After all, neither player should be forced to do something they feel is against their best interests to win.

As you might have guessed from its name, the same flaw in the rules and inherent unfairness in the game of “derby chess” also exists in modern roller derby.

Consider the London/Philly quarterfinal game at the WFTDA east region playoffs.

The first few jams played out about as normally as you’d expect a game of “regular” derby to be played: Teams line up at the pivot line, teams skate forward at pivot whistle, jammers are released after the pack crosses the pivot line, etc.

But the moment Philly gained a small lead early in the first half, they immediately went to the “chickenbrick” strategy of lining up all of their blockers directly in front of the jammers. (This was easy for Philly to pull off, since their bench was closest to the back line.) London, wanting to make sure their jammer didn’t come up against a 4-wall unopposed, also lined up at the back.

When the jam started, Philly refused to move forward, waiting for London to deal with the situation. Whether they liked it or not.

In almost every jam of the game after this point, Philly’s 4-wall took the same position on the jammer line, patently refusing to skate forward at the pivot whistle. They were not going to move forward until London “forced” them to by doing a knee start, or skating forward to split the pack and force a no-pack start.

This was totally unfair to London.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE THE JAM TO BEGIN, YOU MUST SACRIFICE PACK POSITIONING.

No matter how London tried to counter this situation, they were always going to start at some kind of positional disadvantage, or at best, hope that Philly made some kind of mistake to neutralize the disadvantage they were forced to put themselves in.

If London had pushed forward to do a split-pack start, Philly would have almost guaranteed themselves lead jammer thanks to the no-pack situation that would have been an inevitability. (As explained and diagrammed here.) If London had lined up on the pivot line instead, Philly could have just stayed 9.9ft behind them and found themselves with the same advantage. London mostly relied on the strategy of sending one blocker forward to split the pack, leaving three blockers behind on their knees.

But was that much better for them?

(A) To force a jam start without moving all of their skaters forward, London (red) had three of their blockers take a knee, putting them out of play. The fourth blocker skated forward. As the last remaining in-play London blocker gets 10 feet ahead of the Philly (blue) blockers, this creates a no pack situation (as the downed London blockers are not in play and therefore not a part of the pack) to begin the jam. (B) However, London’s actions created a hole in the pack, allowing the Philly jammer to easily break through the wall, easily skate around the lone London blocker, and unfairly win lead jammer status.

London could have just taken a knee at the start of the jam to force the action to begin, I suppose. But why should they have to do that if they didn’t want to? Why should London, or any team, be forced to do a knee that they feel it’s against their best interest to win the game?

But what else could London do?

Philly took advantage of the (unfair) disadvantage that London (had no other choice but to) put themselves in: In the first half of the game, Philly took 16 lead jammer calls to London’s 3 on the way to a commanding 90-6 halftime lead.

Of course, some might say London could have done a better job blocking or assisting their jammer through after Philly got those easy lead jammer calls. Because there’s more to roller derby than just the start sequence, right?

Actually, the stats for this game indicate that London did a fantastic job of doing both of those things, all things considered.

Nine of the 20 first-half jams looked like this: 0-0, 0-0, 3-0, 2-0, 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, 2-0, 0-0; all in favor of Philly. (Three others were 4-0 Philly jams.) In a few others, London stole lead jammer from Philly despite their unfair advantage and got two 3-0 jams of their own—London’s only points of the first half. You don’t keep per-jam scoring that close for 15 out of 20 jams unless you have a team that’s consistently good at blocking and good at helping their jammer out before the other team can make a significant dent on their first scoring pass.

But because Philly was playing “derby chess,” they forced London to put themselves at a positional disadvantage on pretty much every jam. With that many lead jammer calls to fight against, it was inevitable that London was going to give up a few big jams to Philly, even though neither team got into significant penalty trouble. (Total PIMs: London 19, Philly 17; Power jams: Philly 3, London 1.) Realistically, there was nothing London could do to get a fair and equal opportunity to gain lead jammer and score points before Philly did on almost every jam of the first half, and ultimately the never-ending jam losses added up to an insurmountable points deficit.

Philly wanted to win by not doing anything. London wanted to win by playing roller derby.

The fact that those two things are not mutually inclusive should ring alarm bells that something is bad-wrong with the rules of roller derby.

Poor London never had a chance.

What London faced was no different than being forced to play unfair “derby chess.” Instead playing of fair, regular chess, in that London had to remove a piece from the chessboard—that is, skate at least one blocker forward and away from the pack—before a jam could begin. That the Philly jammers were suddenly blowing past the pack at the start and getting lead jammer before turn 1 meant that there was a hole for them to go through.

Where else did that hole come from, if not the spot vacated by the London blocker that skated forward to start the jam? Why should any team be forced to start the jam with one less blocker in their wall for a few moments, as if they were serving a three-second blocker penalty they didn’t do anything to deserve?

In spite of these game-long blocker micro-penalties, London made some halftime adjustments and took 13 second-half lead jammer calls to Philly’s 10. Philly only outscored London by 3 points (50-47) in the 2nd, a virtual tie on the scoreboard.

But I can’t help but wonder: If London was able to play just as well as Philly in the second half, despite the jam start handicaps and the uphill battles that resulted from them…

What could have London done if Philly was forced to play a fair game of roller derby from start to finish?

While NORAD (set in the Rocky Mountains, funnily enough) switches to DEFCON 4 and tries to figure out why, of all places, an apparent Soviet first strike is headed for Seattle, let’s go back to “derby chess” for a second.

Consider what might happen if two grandmasters played in a high-stakes game of “derby chess.” The winner would get an automatic invite to the “derby chess” global championships. Knowing what’s on the line, you know that neither player will be willing to give their opponent any kind of advantage, if they can help it.

How might the opening sacrificial sequence of this “derby chess” match play out?

Knowing that every piece on the board is valuable, a player of the caliber of the grandmaster will not be willing to take one of their pieces off the board and put themselves at an opening disadvantage. This is especially true given that they know their opponent is just as good as they are: Grandmaster vs. grandmaster. Inevitably, they’ll wait for their opponent to make the first move, because there’s no way they will make it easier for their opponent to win so easily.

However…their opponent is thinking the same thing.

When the game begins, they’ll both wait for their opponent to make the first move.

Ten seconds elapse. Then 15 seconds…

…and they keep waiting…

…30 seconds…

…45 seconds…

…60 seconds…

…two minutes…

…more waiting…

…ten minutes…

Would they even play the game at all?

So yeah, “derby chess” sucks ass.

But here’s the thing. Some people in the roller derby community are just fine with roller derby jam starts that play out exactly like this non-starter “derby chess” game, a game with a hopelessly flawed rule. Many slow derby starts are basically contests to see who is willing to stand around the longest, waiting for their opponent to make the first move.

“Mindgames,” people like to call them.

What a bunch of baloney.

In roller derby, just as in other sports, strategy and tactics are important. However, in order to execute those strategies and tactics, players must overcome their opponents via conflict, using athleticism and skill to do it. That is why they are called sports.If derby was just about strategies, you’d have a team of lawyers comparing plans to declare a winner. Or maybe better yet, just plug a bunch of competing strategies into a computer to find out which one is the best.

Hmmm…

No matter what strategy the computer used in Global Thermonuclear War, no one seemed to win. And he used them all. Now how could that be?

Let’s kick this up to DEFCON 3.

In roller derby parlance, those two “derby chess” grandmasters were Rat City and Rocky Mountain. In their semi-final game at the WFTDA west region playoffs, both teams knew something big was on the line: The winner would get a guaranteed trip to the WFTDA Championships. Both teams knew that it was in their best interests to win the game.

Like Philly, Rat City lined up all of their blockers in “chickenbrick” position. Like London, Rocky Mountain wasn’t going to leave their jammer to fend for themselves at the back, so they had little choice to join Rat City at the back.

Rat wasn’t going to move off the jammer line for anything other than Rocky Mountain skating forward to force a split-pack start, or take a knee to force a no-pack start. Either way, Rocky Mountain couldn’t always use their superior athleticism during jam starts to beat Rat City at roller derby, because Rat City was forcing Rocky to play “derby chess” instead.

Rat City wanted to try to win the game by not skating. Rocky Mountain wanted to try to win the game by playing roller derby.

We all know what happened in that game. There were three full jams of no derby, and several minutes more of long and delayed jam starts. Noted derby photographer Joe Rollerfan worked out that in the end, 27% of total jam time—almost 13 minutes of the game—was lost to teams standing around and staring each other down, waiting for each other to make the first move and put themselves at a disadvantage.

I don’t completely blame Rat City for doing what they did against Rocky, though. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to win the game, even if that means doing nothing.

However, that the WFTDA claims their skaters are “Real, Strong, Athletic, and Revolutionary,” all of a sudden seems a suspect claim, because some (that’s some) of the very skaters that made the rules are now executing “strategies” in Unfair, Weak, Apathetic, and Opressive ways, all so they can do what’s in their best interest: Win games.

Yet, people still say that skaters and teams “work hard” to get where they are and be as good as they are, then turn around and try to justify the actions of some players on certain top teams, faced with pressure-cooker situations, working as little as possible in an attempt to “do what you have to do to win?”

Yeah, he might destroy the world and leave what is left of humanity fighting to survive in an endless nuclear winter. But fuck them, all he cares about is winning the game.

In Wargames, as the players began to realize that Global Thermonuclear War was a real game with real consequences, they had to find a way to teach the computer that no matter what strategy it used to start the game, everyone was going to lose by way of nuclear incineration. This is because no matter what strategy the computer used, there was no way to control how other players would act, or react. There was no way to gain a real advantage from launching these nukes first, or those nukes first, because nuclear warfare is a flawed “game” with only one possible outcome:

Mutually Assured Destruction.

Rat City didn’t want to move forward at the start of the jams because they didn’t want to give up an advantageous position, the back of the pack. They knew that without lead jammer calls, there was no way they were going to score on jams. They knew that there was no way they were going to beat an athletically superior Rocky Mountain team by playing a “fair” game with them. Even with time running out, Rat City knew that their only chance was to wait for Rocky Mountain to make a mistake–that of trying to skate forward to play roller derby–so they could get lead jammer calls with the help of unfair advantages due to the pack definition rules, and the no-pack situation that arises from it.

And people wonder why Rocky Mountain refused to skate forward and not start so many jams! Rocky is a smart roller derby team. They had to deal with slow derby strategy ever since Denver first used it against them two years ago. They knew the inherent disadvantages that being at the front of the pack were. They knew there was little or nothing they could do to use the talents and abilities they worked hard to attain, because all Rat City had to do was little or nothing to unfairly neutralize those advantages.

Rocky Mountain understood that no matter which slow-start scenario played out, they would never come out of it ahead. But they made the best out of a bad situation, and only won that sorry excuse for a “game” because they were so much more athletically talented than their opponents, they were able to overcome their starting handicaps, the penalties borne of frustration that (understandably) came from their opponent’s blatant refusal to skate forward, and the uphill battles that resulted from them.

After a that entire episode, how can people not see that game that people like to call “roller derby” is just as flawed as “derby chess?”

When one team wants to skate forward to play roller derby, they cannot control what the other team wants or does not want to do. If both teams want to skate, you get great games like Rocky/Oly and Texas/Kansas City, games that are fair to both teams. If one team doesn’t want to skate, you get shitty games like London/Philly and Rat/Rocky, all of which are unfair to the team that wants to play roller derby to win the game.

This happens all the time. But you never notice it due to the fact that one team is usually good enough to overcome that disadvantage through the course of the entire game. And for some reason, many teams and skaters are okay with this. Because hey, it’s just a game, and both teams usually want to play it. Even if the rules are strange or a little unfair to someone, if both teams are mostly okay with them, they’ll play on anyway.

But if people want to continue to support stifling slow derby tactics and want to continue to explore strategies and “counter”-strategies to them (not just during jam starts), there’s only one possible end result. As teams get better, as everyone begins to equalize in skill, and as the stakes for winning get higher; if a drastic change is not made to the rules, this flawed “game” we call roller derby can only end with only one possible outcome:

Mutually Apathetic Derby.

A STRANGE GAME.THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS?

Yeah, it wasn’t the best example to use as a “great” game, I’ll admit. However, I found it refreshing since there were so few jammer penalties in the game. I think there wasn’t a power jam until halfway through the 2nd half, or something?

Teams were basically forced to skate forward after jams (eventually) started, due to the fact that both jammers were always in play and generally in and out of the pack relatively quickly.

So it was ugly for jam starts, but somewhat promising for the rest of the game. There’s more to derby than trying to knee and stall your skaters off the start line.

Lots of “chickenbrick” starts in the North Centrals tournament as well but those games were hellaexciting to watch. Teams adapt to the situations and learn to use different tactics. The gamesport is evolving.

I love it when people say stuff like this, because that means I can pull this ol’ girl out of the WFTDA rule book:

2.4.1 – A period is divided into multiple jams, which are races between the two teams to score points. There is no limit to the number of jams allowed in each period.

What is roller derby, if not a special race between two teams? (Not two jammers: Two teams.) It’s right there in the rules. Because last time I checked, I didn’t see the words “rugby” or “scrum” in them.

As for the competitive games at North Centrals, absolutely. A lot of them were exciting. But a lot of brilliant moments got canceled out by crappy moments. As I said in this post, unless the rules are changed (and not just force jams to begin artificially) you’re going to see “Mutually Apathetic Derby” once everyone gets closer in abilities and does all the same non-derby tactics to each other.

And you might not know it, but this happened all over the place at North Centrals–the region with the most teams closest to each other in abilities. Not just at jam starts, either. That’s a claim I’ll set out to prove in my next blog post.

While lots of sports have “time wasting” techniques, they almost always still require you to play.
In football you have the downs system and if you don’t make your first down, then you have to turnover the ball. Now, I have heard derby players suggest running plays in football are the same as stroller derby, but in football you must engage the opposition to execute a running play. In case anyone doubts that, ask the running back who is getting stuffed out there, or the linemen who are waging all out war. In fact this aspect of Football is most like active derby in that linesmen must create a hole or crease in which to release their runner. Choosing not to engage as a running team will force a turnover on downs. You can’t stand still and wait the clock out, you’ll get run over.
Soccer has time wasting of sorts as well. Teams that have a lead can play keep away with the ball. However, again you must engage at some point as the other team will press. That is why so many soccer games have surprising endings as one mistake by the defending (leading) team can lead to a scoring opportunity for the opposition.
In hockey they can play a sort of keep away, but again that can only last so long, as the opponent can force turnovers and create scoring opportunities if a team goes into a “shell”. And again a defensive “shell” doesn’t preclude the opposition from engaging you.
Derby needs to evolve past where a non-jam can happen and potentially benefit a team. There has to be a rule change where the incentive to move outweighs the incentive to stand still. Perhaps as in basketball where there is shot clock, for derby there could be a jam start clock that penalizes non-starters with a delay of game penalty for remaining stationary for more than say 10 seconds. If the pack doesn’t start within that 10 seconds, then blow the whistle to release the jammers and assess a delay of game penalty to each pivot, or the blocker you feel is most responsible. This will encourage active play at all times. Just an idea, but something’s gotta give.
My-call Buble
GTA Rollergirls

You’re absolutely right on all points about other sports. Even if you want to waste time and do nothing, you have to act, either by playing offense or working hard on defense. There are no easy outs in sports.

Soccer has time wasting of sorts as well. Teams that have a lead can play keep away with the ball. However, again you must engage at some point as the other team will press. That is why so many soccer games have surprising endings as one mistake by the defending (leading) team can lead to a scoring opportunity for the opposition.

Does anything more need to be said about that?

There has to be a rule change where the incentive to move outweighs the incentive to stand still.

Make sure you have at least a half-hour free, then click here to become enlightened.

How about add no stopping on the track during a jam, all blockers must be in motion before the jammer whistle blows, 3 second delay maximum before the jammer whistle blows, and implement a back-line to the pivot box…. oh crap – then you have WORD rules…

Well, if you go back to WFTDA 1.0 rules, if I remember correctly, you couldn’t stop, always had to be “striding”. Regardless, moving 1/4 inch every 10 seconds still won’t get you across the line to force a jam to start before you waste 2 full minutes. So unfortunately saying no stopping doesn’t exactly equal real movement. I still believe there has to be some sort of clock infraction attached to the start of a jam to force it to begin.

Oh wow that other post is hugely long… I couldn’t face it. However – one thing you neglected to point out is that standing and/or tippy-toe-ing on a banked track for long periods is extremely fatiguing. Skating at a moderate pace is easier than skating at a slow pace.

One of the flat-track problems is that there is no physical incentive for forward motion, the rules should account for that. Of course – I really don’t have a suggestion for how to account for that unless you make some outrageous rule about standing on one toe-stop while at a complete stop on the flat track.

There’s already a small incentive for forward motion: rule 5.1.1.3 says that you must be stepping and/or skating in the counter-clockwise direction to execute a block — it is illegal to block while standing still.

I think the deeper problem is that there’s a stronger advantage to forming a back-wall than a front-wall, and no good way to counteract that advantage. As WindyMan points out here, the methods of releasing the jammers (either by taking a knee before the first whistle, or splitting the pack after the first whistle) put that team at an immediate disadvantage, for no good reason. Even if we come up with a new way to release the jammers, it won’t address the imbalance between the back-wall and front-wall. As long as it’s advantageous to own the back-wall at any cost, that’s what teams will focus their energy on.

Here’s the imbalance I want to see WFTDA address. Imagine that the jammers have already been released, with team B forming a strong back-wall, and team F forming a strong front-wall, each holding the other team’s jammer. Team B gradually slows down until no-pack is called. At that moment, team F has to slow down to reform the pack, and they must yield to team B’s jammer — effectively letting her through the front-wall. But team B has to speed up to reform the pack, and if they speed up faster than F’s jammer, they can keep her trapped. They don’t have to yield before they begin to reform the pack, and they don’t have to yield after reforming the pack.

WindyMan, I like your idea that the pack definition rules should be changed to eliminate the no-pack situation. I like it because it addresses the underlying incentives instead of just forcing or penalizing certain behaviors. I’m not sure that your suggested changes are the best ones, but I think you’re on the right track.

Here’s one possible idea to address the back-wall imbalance I describe above: in a no-pack situation, allow the blockers to keep engaging the jammer while they reform the pack. They would still be required to reform the pack, and it would still be illegal to intentionally destroy the pack, but the blockers would no longer be out of play in a no-pack situation. In other words, the Engagement Zone would no longer disappear, but would instead extend 20 feet from the split pack.

Windyman, I love the pack definition rule change suggestion and would love to watch/ref/play under that ruleset, but I have trouble believing WFTDA will ever try it. First, I think they’re looking to fine-tune the current ruleset, not change the game altogether as those rules would do. Second, as you point out, WFTDA used to define the pack much the way you suggest, and then intentionally moved away from that arrangement. Backtracking now would be admitting a mistake and I’m just not putting my bets on that outcome. (Maybe MRDA will give it a go, there’s no reason they have to stick with strict WFTDA rules forever. I think the faster game that would result would be a good fit for men’s derby.) But in the meantime, I believe we’ve gotta look for something else.

Why not just specify a standard starting formation? A staggered start formation would make it impossible for one team to steal the back wall or otherwise try to gain unfair advantage by racing onto the track and stealing the best starting positions. Let ’em gain advantage once they start skating, if they can. Combine that with a jammer release clock (5 seconds seems like plenty of time to me) and you’ve pretty much ended the non-start problem. If the back wall is still the most desirable place to be, well then so be it. The blockers can fight fair for control of the back wall once they’re all skating and the jammer(s) are in play. If that slows the pack down then the jammers will just make more scoring passes. And the game, once the whistle blows, plays just the same way it does now.

Assume a Black team and a White team. On the first jam, the White Pivot lines up on the Pivot Line (why’s it called that if you’re not gonna put Pivots on it?) to the inside of the track, and the Black Pivot lines up on the Pivot line to the outside of the track. A Black Blocker lines up behind the White Pivot, and a White Blocker lines up behind the Black Pivot. Continue alternating until you run out of blockers. Players must line up close enough to touch the player in front of them; that way nobody is anywhere near the Jammer Start Line. On the next jam, the Black team starts their pivot to the inside and White gets the outside, and that keeps alternating throughout the game. This arrangement also removes the False Start penalty for Blockers who’s hips are in front of the opposing Pivot’s hips, as the players will simply never be in that position. One less silly minor for the officials to call, hooray!

Who determines which team will be closest to the jammer line? The current “Finders keepers” approach is not very sporting. There are certain teams that seem to always line up that way because they know it gives them an unfair advantage. In other sports where players play both offense and defense (basketball, hockey, etc.) there is a structure or set of rules that keeps one team from owning a positional advantage when play begins. Positional equality at the starting whistle is a crucial componant to the future of roller derby because being lead jammer is vital to scoring. As long as the winning strategy is to control the back of the pack, there is no incentive for anyone to start a jam by crossing the pivot line. WFTDA really needs gather a committee to explore a new rules to ensure fair starts. With the exception of start of play, I find roller derby to be one of the most fascinating games out there.

I am also a fan of yacht racing. There is a common theme between the two sports, especially when it comes to starting the race. In yacht racing, boats enter the starting area equal and there is a 5 minute period where the boats jockey for position in the starting area before the race begins. It needs to work in a similar way in roller derby. You start the jam in a neutral position to begin, knowing that you have a certain number of seconds to try to establish an advantage position for your jammer…then it begins.

[…] that point would be to take a knee or cause a split-pack start to begin the jam immediately…but that’s not a great of an option, either. Seems like yet another non-negative consequence for Naptown’s penalty, doesn’t […]